Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Come along as I bang my head against the wall!

Information

In this blog you'll find mostly my thoughts and experiences as well as poems in regards to my Al-anon 12-step recovery.I hope you enjoy. Please feel free to leave me comments.

Thanks

If someone's drinking, drugging or sobriety is bothering you or if you grew up with drinking or drugs in your home, please find an Al-anon meeting. http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/

Friday, August 27, 2010

Reconstruction

Hello everyone.

Last night I celebrated my 6th year in Al-anon. My actual Al-anon birthday is 08/05/2004, but in my home group meeting we celebrate birthdays the 4th Thursday of the month.

We call it a birthday rather than an anniversary because when we enter recovery it's kind of like being reborn.

I was reluctant to celebrate and take my chip last night. This year has been quite difficult. As I've shared in many of the posts before this one, I've been off the beam this year. I've struggled with my recovery. I've struggled with praying. I've been disconnected from the things that have kept me sane in the past.I didn't want to get up and share last night. I didn't want to talk about my year. I didn't want to reflect, one more time, on this past year. It has been riddled with misery, tears and loneliness. This is not to say that there haven't been good things. There have been. Many good things in fact. Some things I wouldn't change...ever.

In my line of sponsorship, it's tradition that when you celebrate your birthday, your sponsor stands up for you and introduces you. Also, he/she will have picked a word or a phrase that represents or sums up your past year. The word my sponsor chose for me this year was "reconstruction".

Recovery is tedious and sometimes it's downright painful. Since May I've begun this process of reconstruction with my sponsor. We've begun working steps again and she's had me doing many things on a daily basis to get myself back on the beam.I still struggle and I am still full of self will. I took my chip last night and I shared about my year. I shared about my marriage and the state it is in, I shared about my mother and how long she was here.She came and stayed for 4 months with me. It was extremely stressful. I also shared about losing our cousin Jacob to drug addiction. That was the hardest part. I tried to not to sound negative. There were probably six or more newcomers in the room. I didn't want them to think that life sucks once you get into recovery, because it doesn't. But, we are the makers of our own misery. I am the maker of my own misery.

I did the best I could last night and I came away from that meeting feeling empty inside. I have eleven women that I sponsor and there are days that, I swear, they are the only reasons I stay in recovery. Thank God I have them. Otherwise, I would be long gone.

I came home and felt that knot in my stomach. I felt alone.

I didn't sleep very well last night. I woke up at 6am in more misery; the ache in my chest that I cannot stand. Shortly after I got up I received a text from a woman I know in recovery. She asked me if I would come and tell my story at one of the local rehabs. It's family night and she needed an Al-anon speaker. I said yes, because I've been taught that we never say no. We don't say no because this program is given to us for free and it saves our lives. When asked to give back to help others, we do it.

I went tonight to share my story. The story of my life growing up in this disease, and my story of recovery. I was pleased to see that the room was filled with the men and women enrolled in the rehab as well as their families. BONUS! I love alcoholics and addicts. They are my favorite people in the world, so it was a privilege to be able to share in front of them.

We tell our story in a general way: what happened, what it was like, and what it's like today.

I ran out of time (my story is long), but I did get to share a little bit about Jacob. What I didn't have much time to share about was the misery of this past year. I mentioned it, but only briefly because I was out of time at that point. Honestly, I believe this was a good thing.

I needed to remember why I was in program. I needed to talk about how important program is for me. How it saved my life.

I was also able to tell my truth. My truth is that I am filled with self will. I am selfish to the core and I am broken.

But I also got to share that I am human. When I am in pain or I am obsessing over what I want and how I want things to be, I forget that. I also forget that there are people in my life for a reason. Good or bad, they are there for a reason.It also reminded me to remember to just love people, especially the people that make me the craziest. It reminded me to take a deep breath, love people, and trust God.

God has a plan for me. He has one for all of us. I just can't see around the corners and I forget to trust that.

I'm grateful today for everything that happens in my life. The good, the bad, and the painful. I am grateful for my mistakes and my defects of character. I am grateful because I know that I can recover. I can get better.

4 comments:

Happy Birthday!! Where I live, I do not remember the date I started Al-Anon and nobody seems to be celebrating their birthdays of their time in the program. I wish they did, it would be nice. Maybe I will mention it at the next meeting. I love this post, it is real and spoke to me. Thanks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEAUTIFUL!! I too felt a sense of sadness after my birthday meeting. I think you may know why! I wanted to run into your arms and cry! That is my co dependency at its best! You are very special to me and I cannot imagine you not being in this program as I don't think I would have made it thru my last few years without you. You taught me so very much and you are the reason that I am still here. SO I AM GLAD you are still fighting and still here! I felt that my insanity and continued trauma was too much for your process this year...there is that ugly co dependency rearing its head again! :) I am happy to know that you found solace and love with your sponsee's I know they are blessed to have you! I love you!! SG

An explantion for you. A letter for Jacob

Most of you know that I am a member of a 12 step program. I don't think I have specified which one. I'll do that now.

I am an active member of Alanon. This is for family and friends of alcoholics. In many cases this also unofficially includes drug addicts. Alanon was created over 55 years ago and was born from the Alcoholics Anonymous program.

This program has saved my life. It has given me an opportunity to have a life that I never dreamed possible. But the single most important thing it has given me is permission to love the alcoholics and addicts in my life.

Most people who have never been affected by or grown up with the disease of alcoholism or drug addiction will not understand this. They will say things like.. Just leave him/her... Throw him/her out...etc. They don't realize that we can't. In many cases it is just not an option.

I am here to tell you that I love many alcoholics and drug addicts. I have many that are family and friends. They are all children of God and are struggling on a daily basis with a disease that's cunning, baffling and powerful. Some have found recovery, some have not and some have died.

Joshua and Jacob. Two boys raised by their father. Grown into men that cared for their father as he aged. Always together... forever taking care of each other.Two incredible men suffering with the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction.

Joshua was my husbands cousin. He was my family by marriage. I loved him. He has 3 beautiful children. We lost him on January 17th 2008. A gentle giant standing over 7ft tall. He was a musician like his father and his younger brother. He was a loving father and a loyal friend. He was a good man. We lost him to this horrible disease of drug addiction.

He left his children, his younger brother and his father to move forward without him.He is missed and he is loved. He will forever be remembered by his children.

Jacob, Josh's younger brother. The one I spent the most time with over the years and even more time with after Josh died. Jacob was lost and devastated from Josh's death. I loved him unconditionally with all of my heart. We lost him in the early morning hours of December 22nd 2009. He was a musician, he was an uncle, he was a comedian, he was a loyal friend, he was a bright shining light. He was a good man with a heart of gold. We also lost him to this horrible disease...

I hate this fucking wretched disease!

Shortly after Josh died we had also lost a mutual friend, again to drugs. Such pain and tragedy. Such loss.I watched Jacob struggle with his addiction, with his loss of Josh. I watched him try and try again to clean up. He stayed with us for periods of time. Because of Alanon we were able to just love him, let him share the secrets of his pain and struggle with us. Not enable him, not do for him what he should do for himself, just love him with acceptance of who he was and where he was.

These last few months things were better. He was no longer using and he had entered AA, had a sponsor and was working toward recovery.Recovery teaches us that we cant rest on our ass's. We have to stay ever vigilant in our recovery work. It's a daily process. We don't get a quick fix.. We don't get healed. We get a daily reprieve contingent upon our spiritual maintenance.

By nature we are great 'forgetters' and this disease is patient. It waits, it grows, it gets stronger every day. I don't know what happened or why Jacob picked up his drug of choice again. I don't have to know. It doesn't matter now. I couldn't have saved him... but I cant help but wish he had called me or his sponsor or anyone. I am angry that he didn't.

They are both at peace and no longer struggle with this disease. They no longer feel the guilt and the shame that comes with it. God doesn't make junk or garbage. No matter what horrible choices they made, or horrible actions they took. These men were children of God and they were loved!

So what I will say to those that love an alcoholic or drug addict is to remember... This is NOT a choice. This is a disease. A very real one and people struggle and fight and die everyday from it. Including the family and friends. Don't enable them, don't do for them what they should do for themselves but simply love them and know that they are not trying to hurt you. For all the pain you feel watching them struggle know that their pain and guilt is far worse. Lastly, GO TO ALANON: http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/ It will save your life!

To the alcoholics and addicts still struggling with the disease, I will say...I understand. I know you're hurting and I know you're baffled. There is help for you and you don't have to do this alone! Please seek help if and when you are ready. http://www.aa.org/

To Jacob,

You were a bright shining light in my life. You held so much love in your heart. Such a special man with a special soul. I know you and Josh are together making music once again. God is holding the both of you. There is no more pain, no more addiction. Your sense of ease and comfort has finally arrived. We spent many nights together. We talked about the disease and we talked about recovery and most times we laughed and laughed. I read to you from the Big Book of AA and also from my favorite book "The Greatest thing in the world" by Henry Drummond. I know you remember. I remember too. Those moments I will hold dear. So I will leave you with the prayer from that book.

*The book can be found here."THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not LOVE I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is kind;Love envieth not;Love vaunteth not itself is not puffed up,Doth not behave itself unseemly,Seeketh not her own,Is not easily provoked,Thinketh no evil;Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.—I COR xiii."

These three remain always Jacob. Faith, hope and Love...And yes the greatest of these is love.